Bears vs. Packers: Rivalry still matters in a city aiming to change

ROCKFORD - Transform Rockford was perhaps the year's most important civic gathering.

All eyes and ears were fixed on the podium Nov. 15 at the Coronado Performing Arts Center when Rudy Valdez said: "Even if you're a Green Bay Packers fan, we all matter."

"I happened to see a couple of Packers fans in the front row and I ad-libbed," Valdez, a UTC Aerospace Systems executive and this year's winner of the Rockford Register Star's Excalibur Award for community achievement, said Friday.

In a city looking for unity and alignment, the Bears-Packers rivalry is one that may forever remain untransformable.

When the teams meet today - the NFC North crown and a playoff berth are at stake - the jocularity of living and working beside someone of a different jersey will transform into three hours of fanaticism, destined to end in rounds of chest-thumping or beery dejection.

To the winners go a year's worth of bragging rights that would, sadly, belong to no one if all followers were aligned.

"Green Bay fans still matter," Valdez said. "It won't be an exciting game without the rivalry. I still believe we all matter. The Bears just matter a little more."

In this town, for every Rudy Valdez there's a Mike Rose.

Rose grew up with six brothers, and four follow the Bears. Mike is one of the two whose football loyalties lie north of the cheddar curtain, where he'd watch Packers games with his grandpa after church in Fond du Lac, Wis.

For four years, Rose worked silently behind enemy lines as an athletics trainer for the Bears.

"Nobody knew I was a Packers fan when I worked there," said Rose, 36. "I kept quiet."

Rose has seen the World Series, Kentucky Derby and other big sporting events. But his greatest thrill? Running onto Lambeau Field with the Bears.

"As a Packers fan you sit in the stands and say what a great experience Lambeau Field is. But to be inside the tunnel walls and be able to run out of the field and have everyone booing you, that's cool."

Rose's son is being baptized at noon today. Family festivities will be finished by kickoff. He'll watch the game at home with his wife, Maggie, a Bears fan.

While the Roses' will be a house divided, fans of both teams will wind up in bars to watch the game. Win or lose, the Packers-Bears game will be big business.

The Scoreboard Lounge at the Hoffman House in Rockford is one of many places that expects to a large crowd.

The bar will be full, General Manager Michael Prosser predicts, and fans will seated the restaurant where they can eat buffet food, drink and watch the game on a 60-inch TV.

The Scoreboard is ready for the crowd, which will be spilt between the two teams. He expects fans to consume plenty. To prepare, they'll have on hand:

3,750 chicken wings.

100 pounds of shaved prime rib.

10 gallons of chili.

12 kegs of beer.

15 cases of beer.

8 cases of liquor.

"We're normally very busy on any game day, but this game will be busier than the Super Bowl for us," Prosser said.